Democrat Miller challenges Sump in 7th District

OLYMPIA – Two years after losing to Republican state Rep. Bob Sump in a nearly 2-to-1 landslide, Democrat Jack Miller wants a rematch.

“We have lots of problems in these six northeast counties,” he said, “and they’re not being addressed.”

After a decade of representing the sprawling 7th Legislative District, he said, Sump has done little to improve education or the economy in one of the state’s poorest regions.

“I heard from a lot of people that they want a better voice for Eastern Washington out there in Olympia,” Miller said.

It will be an uphill battle. The 7th District – which includes Ferry, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Stevens and parts of Okanogan and Spokane counties – hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Statehouse since 1990. In all of Eastern Washington, in fact, there are just four Democratic state lawmakers. And three of those represent downtown Spokane.

Sump doesn’t sound too worried. He won 64 percent of the vote two years ago to Miller’s 33 percent.

“If the people want Jack Miller, then God bless him. That’s all I’ve got to say. I’m over there doing my best,” Sump said. “When a guy gets 30 percent of the vote, he’s not even really a viable candidate.”

Miller, 58, is the director of information systems at Whitworth College. He has a small ranch – about 100 acres with a few horses and cows – in the southeast corner of Spokane County. He’s a Democrat, he said, but in an Eastern Washington way. During the 2004 campaign he described gun and property rights as fundamental, with little room for compromise.

Still, he said, with Democrats running the Statehouse, it makes sense for voters to send someone who’s in the same party. Democratic leaders have recently shown more interest in Eastern Washington issues – Columbia River water storage, biodiesel crops, farm tax breaks – and Miller says he could work well with them. He wants more opportunity for residents to go to college, he said. He’d like to see all children have health insurance coverage, calling it a moral obligation – and an investment in the state’s future.

He’s also hoping for a political tailwind this year from increased unhappiness with Republicans’ national leadership. Local turnout at Democratic functions, he said, is “dramatically higher” than in 2004.

Sump’s response: that it would hurt the region, not help it, to add another Democrat voice in Olympia.

“Instead of fighting the Department of Ecology, you’d have someone else over there helping the West Side Democrats and Ecology to rob us of our water rights,” he said. “Do we want to send another Democrat over there to reinforce the Growth Management Act?”

Miller also says that the district deserves someone who works harder than Sump. He cites the few bills sponsored by Sump, along with dozens of missed votes last year and that at the dozens of events he attended in 2004, Miller ran into Sump at just three.

Sump scoffed. He drives 2,000 to 3,000 miles a month through the district, he said, speaking at chamber of commerce meetings, service clubs and high school graduations.

“They may not be the places he (Miller) appears, but you know what? I don’t answer to him,” Sump said.

As for the 77 missed votes last year, Sump said he was sick. He missed no votes this year.

Sump said that some of his most important work is stopping legislation, not sponsoring more of it.

This year, he said, he helped weaken a bill that would have required septic system overhauls for thousands of people on Hood Canal.

Sump said he feared that such a policy could later extend to homes around Lake Roosevelt.

“I work at reducing regulations,” he said. “I don’t work at enhancing regulations.”